Fort Adams was built to keep watch over the water. On Sunday, October 4, it kept watch over a lawn full of automobiles instead, as the 2026 Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance, presented by A. Lange & Söhne, unfolded at the Newport, RI, landmark for the first time. In all, 185 automobiles vied for top honors and the field held a record number of cars, a suitably grand debut for the former home of the America’s Cup.
The 2026 Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance, presented by A. Lange & Söhne, took place October 4 at Fort Adams in Newport, RI, with 185 competing automobiles and a record field. A 1938 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet won the Vanderbilt Cup for Best of Show.
For A. Lange & Söhne, the new address marked a new chapter rather than a new relationship. The Saxon manufacture is now four years into its affiliation with the Audrain Concours, which Lange describes as autumn’s most prominent vintage car concours competition, and it greeted the change of scene by bringing a dash of timekeeping history to Newport: the Lange chronograph collection, set against the backdrop of some of the world’s finest automobiles.
Newport is one stop on a carefully curated circuit. Lange supports a select group of Concours d’Elegance competitions around the globe, including the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como, Italy, which it has sponsored for 15 years, and the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace in the UK, where its partnership now spans nine years. Across all three, the manufacture frames its role as a commitment to preserving concours culture and the values both worlds share: tradition, craftsmanship, and timeless design.
The new venue brought its own sense of occasion. Fort Adams is named for former U.S. President John Adams and holds the distinction of being America’s largest coastal fortification, which made it a fitting stage for what Lange calls a landmark edition of the event. For a competition steeped in provenance, there are worse places to park a prewar Delahaye.
The Vanderbilt Cup
That Delahaye, as it turned out, was the car of the day. Taking home the Vanderbilt Cup for Best of Show was a meticulously preserved 1938 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet from the Pearl Collection, a car that has had nearly nine decades to perfect its stance. The award was presented by A. Lange & Söhne CEO Wilhelm Schmid.
Schmid’s duties did not end there. He was also on hand to present awards to the winners of the “30 Under 30” and “Timeless Luxury” categories. In the manufacture’s words, the winning vehicles in these categories exemplify a refusal to compromise on demanding the highest level of quality in every detail, a standard that sounds familiar coming from a watchmaker whose movements are elaborately finished and assembled by hand.
“There are no shortcuts to excellence,” says Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of A. Lange & Söhne. “The fact that so many of these automobiles are as appealing today as the moment they were launched 60 or more years ago tells a story of designers, engineers, and owners whose combined skill, dedication to craft and passion created something more than just a car.”
“We’re proud of our affiliation with the Audrain Concours and have enjoyed watching it grow over the years while staying true to its mission to celebrate automotive tradition, heritage and craftsmanship,” Schmid continues. “And we hope that our distinctly German approach to fine watchmaking inspires the same enduring fascination as the timeless masterpieces on the field.”
It is a tidy summation of why a watchmaker belongs on a concours lawn at all. Both worlds measure value partly by how long an object stays compelling, and Schmid’s “60 or more years” is a benchmark the Best of Show Delahaye cleared with nearly three decades to spare.
The Chronograph Gallery
If any complication belonged in Newport, it was the chronograph. As Lange points out, the city is no stranger to motorsport, having been the location of the first American car circuit race, so the stopwatch on the wrist was very much in its natural habitat at the Audrain Concours. The manufacture is quick to add that its chronographs go beyond motorsport, representing a quest for perfection that combines elegance in movement construction and exceptional design with groundbreaking chronograph features.
To make that case, A. Lange & Söhne presented a gallery featuring its diverse portfolio of high-end chronographs, built as an experience around the 13 chronograph models the manufacture has introduced since 1999. The aim, in Lange’s telling, was to show enthusiasts the many ways in which these advanced watches are at home among the most extraordinary automobiles ever built.
Among the watches on view, guests could discover the DATOGRAPH, the chronograph Lange calls its modern classic. It is the kind of watch that rewards the same close inspection the judges gave the cars on the field.
Guests could also explore the newest member of the family. The TRIPLE SPLIT in 950 platinum, the latest addition to Lange’s chronograph collection, can measure intermediate times and comparative times over a period of up to 12 hours. In our view, it was the most fitting watch in the gallery for this crowd: a concours is, at heart, an exercise in comparison, with one car weighed against another, and the TRIPLE SPLIT is designed to keep two timings running side by side across half a day.
Complementing the technical sophistication in the gallery, an engraver from Lange’s Glashütte manufacture invited visitors to engage with a live demonstration of the intricate artistry behind the brand’s hand-engraved balance cocks. The craft has been a defining feature of Saxon watchmaking since the mid-19th century, and the demonstration offered something no car on the field could: the chance to watch the craftsmanship happen in real time.
That craft runs deep in the house. Dresden watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange laid the foundations for Saxony’s precision watchmaking industry when he established his manufacture in 1845, and his pocket watches remain highly coveted among collectors. The company was expropriated after World War II and the name nearly vanished, until his great-grandson, Walter Lange, relaunched the brand in 1990.
Today, Lange crafts only a few thousand wristwatches per year, predominantly in gold or platinum, each equipped with an in-house movement that is elaborately finished and assembled by hand. The manufacture has developed 77 calibres since 1990, and its best-known achievements include the LANGE 1, which the brand cites as the first regularly produced wristwatch with an outsize date, and the ZEITWERK, with its precisely jumping numerals.
The 2026 Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance took place on October 4, 2026, at Fort Adams in Newport, RI, with A. Lange & Söhne as presenting partner. Lange’s program on the day included the chronograph gallery, featuring the DATOGRAPH and the TRIPLE SPLIT in 950 platinum, and the live balance-cock engraving demonstration, while Schmid presented the Vanderbilt Cup for Best of Show along with the “30 Under 30” and “Timeless Luxury” awards.
A record field, a first outing at Fort Adams, and a 1938 Cabriolet on the top step made for a confident opening to the Audrain Concours’ new chapter. Four years in, the partnership rests on the premise Schmid started with: there are no shortcuts to excellence, whether the object in question is built on a chassis or inside a 950 platinum case.
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